A shirt either fits or it does not at six points: the collar, the shoulder seam, the armhole, the body, the sleeve and cuff, and the overall length. Three of those a tailor can correct on a shirt you already own. Three cannot be changed for any sensible money, and those are the three worth checking before you hand over a card — in a shop here in Phuket or anywhere else.
Most people check the wrong one. They check whether the body is tight, which is the easiest thing in the world to alter, and ignore the shoulder, which is the one thing that decides whether the garment was ever theirs.
The six points, in the order they actually matter
1. The collar
Button the top button and slide two fingers flat inside the collar. Two fingers is the working tolerance the trade has used for a long time, and it holds across neck shapes better than a number on a tape does. Fewer than two and it will feel like a restraint by lunchtime, and in this climate it will mark. More than two and the collar stands off the neck and the tie knot loses its frame — visible instantly under a jacket lapel, and the reason a photograph can look wrong without anyone being able to say why.
2. The shoulder seam
The seam joining the sleeve to the body should land on the outer corner of your shoulder bone, or a whisker past it. Sitting inboard of the bone means the shirt is too small and will pull the moment you reach forward. Hanging down the upper arm means it is too big, and the sleeve will fold and puddle in a way that no amount of taking in at the waist will hide.
3. The armhole and the yoke
The yoke is the panel across the upper back that the sleeves hang from, and together with the armhole it sets your whole range of movement. A high, close armhole feels counter-intuitively freer, because the body of the shirt stays put when you lift your arm. A low, generous armhole feels roomy on the hanger and then drags the shirt out of your waistband every time you reach for something. That is worth understanding, because a shirt that keeps untucking is almost never a length problem.
4. The body
Enough room to pinch two to three inches of spare cloth at each side, and no more. Below that and buttons pull into little horizontal stress lines across the chest. Above it and the cloth billows over the waistband, which shows most clearly the moment a jacket comes off — which, in Phuket, is most of the time.
5. The sleeve and cuff
A buttoned cuff should sit at the base of the thumb, snug enough not to slide over the hand but loose enough for two fingers. Under a jacket, roughly half an inch of shirt cuff should show past the jacket sleeve. Sleeve length is one of the easier corrections, so a small error here is not fatal.
6. The length
Long enough to stay tucked when you raise both arms above your head — the only reliable test, and worth doing in the fitting room. A shirt intended to be worn untucked is a different garment with a different hem, not the same shirt worn differently, and the shorter, straighter hem is what makes it read as deliberate rather than sloppy.
The three that cannot be rescued
Collar size, shoulder width and armhole height. Everything else on that list is routine alteration work; these three are the shirt’s architecture. Recutting a yoke means detaching both sleeves, rebuilding the shoulder line and putting the sleeves back at the right pitch — hours of skilled work on a garment that rarely justifies it, and still bounded by how much cloth the original maker left inside the seams.
Which is why the honest advice, when someone brings us a shirt they love that does not fit through the shoulders, is usually that the money is better spent having one cut to their measurements than rebuilding one that was cut to somebody else’s. The counterpart to that is the good news: if a shirt is right in the shoulders and the collar, the rest is quick, cheap work that changes the garment completely.
What the cloth does here, which is not what it does in London
Fit is only half of it in a climate like this one. The weave decides the rest, and the difference is larger than the fibre.
- Poplin — a plain weave, one thread over one, leaving the most open structure of the common shirtings. The default for heat, and what most of our shirt cloth is.
- Voile — lighter and more open again, the coolest thing you can put on a body while still calling it a shirt. Slightly sheer, which some people mind.
- Oxford — a basket weave that breathes reasonably but carries more weight and reads casual. Good under an open collar, wrong under a formal suit.
- Twill — a diagonal weave that packs the threads more densely. Handsome, drapes beautifully, and traps heat and moisture longer than the others. Fine in an air-conditioned office, punishing on a Bangtao afternoon.
Linen and linen blends outbreathe every cotton on that list and crease in exchange, which is a trade rather than a fault. The same logic governs the right cloth for this climate in a suit, where the stakes are higher because there is more of it.
Checking a shirt in about a minute
In a shop, in this order:
- Button the collar. Two fingers.
- Find the shoulder seam with your thumb. Is it on the bone?
- Reach straight forward as if shaking hands. Does the back pull?
- Raise both arms. Does it untuck?
- Pinch the cloth at your side. Two to three inches?
- Button the cuff. Base of the thumb, two fingers.
Steps one to three are the ones you cannot fix later. If a shirt fails any of them, put it back regardless of what the label says, because that is the shirt that will hang unworn.
Why shirts are the sensible first order on a short trip
A shirt has far less inside it than a jacket, so it comes together faster than anything else we make, and the whole point of the six-point check is that it can be verified on your body rather than argued about in advance. At The Outfit we fit one shirt first, correct it, and cut the rest to the corrected pattern — which is why the first one takes the time and the others do not. If you want the detail of how the appointments run before you commit to anything, how the fitting process works sets out the steps, and the cloth, collar and cuff options for custom shirts are on their own page.
Your pattern stays on file at The Outfit afterwards. Most people who order shirts here order more of them later, from wherever they went home to, and that only works because the fit was settled properly the first time.
The short version
Six points. Collar, shoulder, armhole, body, sleeve, length. The first three are the shirt; the last three are adjustments. Check the first three before you buy anything, and get the rest fixed by somebody who can sew.